‘Buttock-shuffling’ woman to be prosecuted after claiming £740,000 for 'grossly exaggerated' injury

Monday 28 January 2013 11:57 BST

A High Court judge said the mother of two teenagers had let them down, amid a tug-of-love battle with their Spanish father

A High Court judge has given the go-ahead for the prosecution of a London grandmother who falsely stated that she could only climb stairs by “shuffling on her buttocks” in a bid to claim £740,000 in compensation.

Barbari Fari, 59, from Haringey, told a court that a trip on a cracked paving stone had left her so badly injured that she had to move between the different floors of her house by “sliding on my buttocks” in an “immensely humiliating” fashion.

She also said that she had to spend most of her life indoors because of the “shame and stigma of my current state” and could only go out when accompanied by her husband and travelling by taxi.

But after video evidence led to her “grossly exaggerated” claim being thrown out at an earlier hearing, High Court judge Mr Justice Holroyde has now given the green light for Mrs Fari to be prosecuted for contempt of court. Her husband Piper, who gave evidence supporting the false claim, will also be prosecuted. Both face a potential prison sentence if convicted.

The prosecution, brought by Homes for Haringey, which is responsible for the pavement near Mrs Fari’s home on which she tripped, is intended to counter “compensation culture” by deterring those prepared to make exaggerated damages claims.

Approving the prosecution, Mr Justice Holroyde said that the case was prompted by surveillance videos which showed Mrs Fari “using stairs without assistance” and “carrying her shopping bags without difficulty”.

This was an “extraordinary divergence from the picture painted” by Mrs Fari and her husband in which they had claimed that she needed care for 10 to 16 hours a day, was only able to climb stairs by “shuffling on her buttocks”, and was no longer able to care for her children and grandchildren.

The judge said that although Mrs Fari and her husband claimed that previous media coverage of her case had caused her “embarrassment” there was a “strong public interest in pursuing false claims” and that a contempt prosecution was justified.

Mr Justice Holroyde’s decision follows a previous hearing at the Central London county court at which Judge Christopher Mitchell threw out Mrs Fari’s £740,000 compensation claim.

Judge Mitchell said that Mrs Fari’s claim was “outrageous” and “grossly distorted” the extent of her injury and that the planned prosecution was intended to be a test case to show that “this form of approach towards personal injury cases was not going to be tolerated”.

The judge added: “I have to say that this court is used to the fact that claimants come and exaggerate their claims or lie about them completely. It is something which is not in the interests of justice, it is not in the public interest because it wastes a vast amount of time and a vast amount of taxpayers’ money. These false claims or exaggerated claims are costing a fortune.”